


Grow Me A Garden Of Roses

by guilt_is_for_mortals



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst and Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Leading towards lots of Flowers and Fluff, Lots of Flowers and Sadness, M/M, Melancholy, No Archive, Sad with a Happy Ending, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22200505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guilt_is_for_mortals/pseuds/guilt_is_for_mortals
Summary: Martin steals one of Jons roses every week. One day Jon decides that he wants to know which girl is worth so many flower crimes.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 21
Kudos: 99





	1. Flower Crimes

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to agentandromeda who beta read this for me.

Martin rubbed his ice-cold, dripping wet hands together, trying to warm up his stiff fingers a little. Rain soaked his sweater and hair, flowing in small streams from his head down to his neck. He had barely left his apartment, deeply lost in thought, when the storm grey sky opened up and unleashed a heavy downpour on earth. He hadn't turned around to get an umbrella. Martin knew that he should care if he got wet and sick, but he didn’t. The rain now soaked through the fabric of his shoes, leaving his socks and feet clammy and cold. It did not matter.  
  
The water formed puddles on the sidewalk and washed the colours out of a world that had not been colourful for Martin for a long time. Even the roses looked sad and grey, hanging their heads instead of stretching out towards the sun. Almost poetic, Martin thought to himself. It made him feel silly; as if he had ever been a real poet, someone to see a rose in the rain and then write a poem about heartache. When he stared at the empty sheets of paper in front of him at night, filled with shed tears instead of words, he was no poet. He was lonely.  
  
The unpleasant heat that rises with tears built up within him, the rainwater soothing his hot skin as the salt got washed from his cheeks. He reached out for one of the roses, clasped the slippery stem with his fingers and tried to bend it off.  
  
"So it is you who is always stealing my roses?"  
  
Thorns dug into his fingers as he reflexively closed his hand around the flower and looked at the dark figure like a deer caught in headlights. He hadn't noticed the man, so completely lost in thought he was. Dark jacket, dark hair, dark eyes. Even the umbrella he was holding was black. A burning cigarette between his fingers, his eyebrows furrowed to a deep frown.  
  
"I... ah... I..."  
  
"I hope the girl you are trying to impress likes dirty criminals. Do you think she will visit you in jail?"   
  
Martin's brain took too long to decipher what the smoking man — obviously the owner of the rose bush — was intending to say. He lowered his eyes to the flower in his hand. The spot where the thorns had carved themselves into his skin bled slightly. Blood as red as the roses petals mixed with the rain, leaving streaks on his hand before dripping to the ground.  
  
"I'm coming with you. I want to see who deserves such flower crimes."   
  
The dark eyes looked at him with determination. The man raised his slim hand one last time, took one last puff and stubbed out his cigarette. Martin took a moment to watch the smoke stream from his slightly open lips into the cold air, where his own breath created misty clouds of fog.  
  
"Well, we don't want to keep your date waiting, do we?"  
  
Martin was still too perplexed to answer. Where would he start to explain? Perhaps it was best to play along and simply  _ show  _ it to the owner of the roses. Just the thought of having to explain it here and now made tears well up in his eyes. He was freezing. If the man wanted to come with him, he would not fight back. Wordlessly he set off into the rain, not even looking back if the guy followed or not. He just wanted to visit her and then get out of the cold.  
  
Martin wondered when exactly the stranger noticed that they were walking towards the old cemetery at the edge of town. He had actually followed him — at some point he had even held the umbrella over Martin's head. Neither of them spoke a word. If the dark man understood, he didn't let it show, his frown still intact, his expression unchanged.  
  
The gravestone seemed to mock Martin as he stood peacefully in his place. With trembling fingers he took the wilted rose from the grave and exchanged it for the new one. He was so wet already that he did not hesitate to kneel on the soaked ground.  
  
"Hello, Mum."   
  
Cold marble under his skin as he stroked the stone. Hot tears on his cheeks. A few moments passed before he rose again, joints aching. The stranger's face had turned to stone, his eyes widened with understanding.  
  
"Right, uh... this is...  _ the girl _ ."   
  
These were the first real words he addressed to the stranger, his voice rough from how seldom he used it. So rarely since his mum…  _ left _ . The man didn't utter a word, still staring at the tombstone.  
  
"Roses. They were her favourites. And I-, I don't really have the money to buy them for her and… Right, so whenever I go to see her, because I still can’t really believe that she is  _ gone _ …" He stumbles over his words, trying to explain. To apologize.  
“But I shouldn't have taken them. Sorry. I am sorry."  
  
Slowly, as if he had forgotten how his body moved, the man turned away from the grave, raised his hand and after a moment placed it firmly onto Martins shoulder. Martin felt it’s warmth spread onto his skin. Not the unpleasant stinging heat that came with the tears, but something else, something almost comforting. They looked at each other silently, and Martin thought he understood. The stranger could not put it into words, but he was sorry.  
  
The downpour turned into a light drizzle as the two of them finally made their way back. Silently, somewhat pressed together under the black umbrella. Martins skin felt warmer than before, but he was unsure if it was because of the unfamiliar closeness to someone or if he was so cold that he just didn't feel anything anymore. Numb to cold and pain. His mother had not even really liked him. But when she left, she took Martin's feelings with her and didn't even leave anger or sadness for him to cope. He had given everything for her and she had taken it all. Now he was empty. He wasn’t even sure if he missed her.   
  
\---  
  
Martin tried to admonish himself that it was stupid to feel bad about his decision. He would go to the cemetery today, visit his mother as he did every week and  _ not  _ steal a rose from the dark strange man on the way. Logically, he knew that his mother was lying there underground, dead, and she didn't care if he brought her flowers or not. She wouldn't have cared if she was alive either. He should feel much more bad because he robbed his almost neighbor of his pretty roses.  
  
Martin hadn't been able to bring himself to cancel the newspaper his mum had always been reading. He bent down to pick it up as he did everyday, to discover that there was a single red rose placed on today's issue. He picked it up carefully, looking at the delicate flower for a moment, wondering who might have put it there. It had been cut professionally. Sweet scent rose in his nose as he stuck it almost directly between the petals. The only person who knew about his graveyard visits was the owner of the rose bush. Had he cut off a flower and brought it to him? No one else knew and it seemed to be the same sort of red rose.   
  
He almost smiled. Like every week since his mother died, he would bring her one of her favorite flowers. But this time it wasn't stolen, this time it was... something else. Something more. The stranger had voluntarily sacrificed one of his roses for Martin to bring to her, knowing fully well that he wouldn't dare try again... Martin nearly cried, moved by the selfless gesture of the stranger.


	2. Cat Therapy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry that this particular fic takes me ages to update!  
> Buut here it finally is, chapter 2.
> 
> I take back my statement of this going to be about 3 chapters - it's gonna be a lot longer,   
> since I have had a lot time to plan and think about it and there is much more to come!
> 
> I hope you enjoy <3

Time is relative. After the funeral, Martin got a bit lost in its strings. Days that merged seamlessly into each other, holding no real memory of when one began and the other ended. Seconds that became eternities and stretched on forever. Hours spent crying as he tried to sort through a single box of his mother's belongings, deciding what to keep. Minutes in which he threw whole boxes outside next to the garbage cans, unopened, tied up with cord. Time strings and cord. His past self would have composed a wonderful poem about that. Looking back, heartache seemed much less poetic.  
  
It had been exactly four weeks since the stranger had caught him stealing flowers, and three weeks since the first rose had appeared on his doorstep. But as happy as he was about the neighbour giving him flowers for his mother's grave voluntarily now, he couldn’t get rid of the thought that it was all simply out of guilt. He had led the stranger astray, dragged him along to the cemetery and in some way manipulated him shamelessly. The man hadn’t seemed like someone who did anything just out of pure kindness.  
  
So Martin got up extra early that autumn morning and, for the first time in what seemed like forever, pulled the dusty curtains apart that stopped the sunlight from flooding the small kitchen. He even made himself some tea. From his sitting spot directly at the counter he had a nice view outside into the empty, sad little garden and the pathway leading up to the small house he lived in. He would notice if the stranger appeared and he would confront him about what he was doing. He did not want any sympathy.  
  
The tea had steeped a little too long and covered his tongue with a bitter taste that matched his thoughts. The garden outside seemed to mock him, an untidy lawn in dire need of mowing, a few daisies and dandelions growing wild here and there. His mother had liked flowers, but never found the time for gardening, back when Martin was little. She had worked at lot and tried to offer him a good life, even without a father, even if the money wasn’t enough to feed both of them many times. And when she got sick it was just another failure she accused Martin of when the pain made her say things she didn't really mean. That he had stopped her from living her life just being there. He wasn't sure what was worse, his relief at not hearing those words anymore, or the wish that his mother would yell at him again, still alive...  
  
The hissing of a cat tore him from his thoughts, almost knocking over the cup of tea. He had been staring outside and yet he hadn't noticed that the neighbour had come to his house in the meantime, wearing all black again, a cigarette in one hand and a rose in the other. Martin hurried to the door and thought just in time to put on a jacket to make it look as if he just happened to be leaving anyway. And not as if he had spent half the morning watching his front garden, waiting for someone to appear like an old, bored lady.  
  
A strange, nervous feeling spread in him as carefully opened the door. Outside, the man had crouched down on the steps, the rose carelessly laid beside him on the newspaper and a cat on his lap. He took a drag off his cigarette, but the cat didn't seem to mind the smoke, purring happily. It was a skinny, somewhat dishevelled thing. Probably an alley cat.  
  
"You know, he used to steal a rose every week... because his mother, she is... and I'm the biggest idiot, asking him which girl he wants to impress... yeah... yeah I know... he could have just asked... no, I wouldn't just ring my neighbors doorbell either..." The man, who had been so cool and dismissive towards Martin, talked to the cat in all seriousness. And apparently he really had a bad conscience, so absorbed in the therapeutic conversation with the stray that he hadn't noticed Martin yet.  
  
"It's okay," Martin said now and the man turned around so quickly that the cat hissed angrily and sank it’s claws into the thigh underneath it’s paws, but still remained seated. Big, dark eyes stared up at Martin, a hint of panic on the mans face, but his thin fingers caressed the cat's grey fur incessantly.  
  
"You don't have to... I shouldn't have stolen, and you don't have to go through the trouble, it's all right. You haven't been very nice, but..." He was interrupted by the man patting on the step next to him with his free hand. Martin, who was suddenly aware of how uncomfortable the height difference between them was in this position, hurried to sit down next to him.  
  
" If you don’t want me dropping by you could just grow your own roses. " He stared very determinedly and with a gloomy expression at a point directly in front of him on the floor, but the purring of the cat invalidated his annoyed appearance a little. For a moment they both remained silent, because Martin didn't know what to answer and the man didn’t have any more to say. Martin just didn't want the man to worry about him. His feelings were not important enough for someone else to consider them, the neighbour should not care, just like everybody else.  
  
"Or... I mean, I could help you grow your own roses. I mean, if you... wanted to... it would be... more practical. And I... know my way around roses. ...so to speak."  
Martin turned his head to look at the stranger, who was still focused on the floor and the cat, but Martin was sure that there was a hint of blush on his cheeks. He tried to find something in the man's behaviour and appearance to bring back his inner rage about the sympathies he didn't want. But all he found was genuinity and a huge amount of awkwardness. This situation was as strange to the man next to him as it was to Martin himself. It was strangely endearing.   
  
“You know what? Why not. It would be nice to be able to grow my own roses. And… start a new hobby, maybe. Gardening’s said to be good for the soul, right?”   
A deep laugh sounded from the neighbor who now finally turned around to face Martin directly. When the sun hit his eyes, they had a golden sparkle in it and Martin reminded himself that he did not actually know if he liked this person or not.   
  
“Gardening means that you are at war with nature. It is wild and beautiful and you will be trying to tame it. But sometimes digging up a flower bed can be quite nice for letting out agressions.” A hand was reached out in front of him.   
  
“I am Jonathan Sims, by the way. Or… Jon, please. Guess I could have introduced myself sooner.”  
  
“Martin Blackwood,” he answered with a smile and they shook hands. Perfectly on time to disturb the moment, the cat hopped onto its feet, swishing it’s fluffy tail against Jon’s face and meowed loudly at Martin.   
  
“Hey, uh… why don’t you come in and we’ll talk about that gardening plans over a cup of tea? And the soft little lady here can have a saucer of milk.” The cat started to purr as if it had heard every words and Martin gave her a nice little scritch behind the ears.   
  
“Yeah, you want some milk, right? Right. What a good cat. The best cat. Such pretty ears.”  
  
Jon gave him a strange look, one that Martin could not really interpret. As if he hadn’t been the one using the poor kitty as a therapist to talk about his feelings just a few minutes before.   
  
“Fine. The  _ best cat with the prettiest ears  _ shouldn’t go hungry.” Said cat hopped off of Martin’s lap gracefully as he now stood and extended his hand to help Jon back up. Their hands touching for the second time this day. Jon’s fingers were just as cold as his own. He had really nice hands. Martin noticed a simple, black ring around one middle finger. Jon let go first, very quickly, and Martin tried to not think that it was somehow his fault as he turned around to open the door and let both Jon and the kitty inside.  
  
For weeks the kitchen, the living room, the whole house had felt cold, and Martin along with it. As if his mother had taken any heat with her, taking it six feet under, leaving him to shiver, icy fingers, frozen heart. Now, as he put the kettle on to make tea, as Jon awkwardly sat down onto the sofa, as the cat purred happily, licking milk from a saucer, he could feel the warmth returning into his fingers and the tip of his nose. Slowly spreading from inside, a tiny flame coming back to life, flickering, but there.   
  
“So…” he asked, turning around towards Jon with the faintest smile on his lips.   
“How are we going to start our  _ war against nature _ ?”

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry, it will get a bit more light and fluffy from here on.


End file.
